The Joys of Labor! (The Pre-term Type)

We have successfully visited the hospital twice now in the past 2 days, to now be back home and in waiting mode. On Saturday night I was working on Primary stuff for Church the next day when I realized I was having contractions.  I kept grabbing my pop up box on my computer to time them, only to find that they were 5 minutes apart. I timed them for about a half an hour, and when they had not stopped, went to lay down in bed to see if that would help.  Sam, who was sitting on the floor of our room on his computer, immediately asked me what I was doing. I think he knew that was not my "normal" behavior. I let him in on what was going on and we timed them a little longer while I laid down to see if they would stop. No such luck. I called my doula to find out if she had any suggestions to help them stop, we tried those, but with no success, finally called the doctor around 10:45pm. We got the response we knew we would probably get, "Go to Labor & Delivery." In the mad rush of trying to stay calm while you wake up four just barely knocked out babes, my contractions really picked up intensity. I knew something was going on.  Sam hurried as quick as he could go, in the process, taking one of the kids to go potty and flooding our downstairs bathroom with toilet water. All I could tell him was to leave it.  I would rather have warped bathroom baseboards than a preemie born on the freeway! We rushed the kids to his parents house and drove as fast as possible to the hospital. (Not a very comfortable ride at all!) When we got to the hospital, we realized that we have not even done a tour yet, and did not even know what floor L&D was on. When we made it to the correct floor, we felt just as lost. Sam finally left me in a waiting room and told me he would come back for me with a nurse and a wheel chair once he found out where we needed to be. (It turned out to be only a few more steps ahead. :)  ) They got me all checked in and checked me.  I was dilated to a 2, 80% effaced, and my sac of waters was bulging. I was definitely not going anywhere. The monitors showed my contractions every 3-7 minutes, with some being as far apart as 11 minutes. The decision was made to give me terbutaline shots. Luckily the first shot slowed them down a lot. I had been having a TON of back cramping and pain so it was nice to get relief for a little while.  However, after about 4 hours, they were back up full force. They gave me another shot and that seemed to help. Everything pretty much stopped completely. The on-call doctor came in to check me about 9:00 in Sunday morning and said I was only at a so-so 1, high, and thick. I knew a lot of my pressure had let up from the evening before, but it seemed a little odd to change ThaT Much! We took it for what it was though. Different people, different interpretations. (Of course your on-call doctor is never your actual doctor. That would be to easy.) After a totally non-sleeping night for me, I was able to go home and rest in my own bed.  Today, I scheduled my follow-up appointment with my actual doctor, expecting a doctor' visit, then a nice trip back home. Not the case.  I make it in to my appointment, only to find out now that I was at a 3 and baby was Very Low. I was sent right over to L&D from her office to be monitored again. My contractions were happening again every 3-7 minutes, just not as intense as Saturday night. After about 4 hours of monitoring, my doctor came back in to check me and nothing had changed from earlier. We finally agreed for me to go home, take it easy the next few days, and if something increases, we are having a baby, if not, we wait.  So here we wait. I am getting more anxious now, but excited too.  I just want the baby to be able to come home with us and not need the NICU. We will see how things progress.  Right now, I think my contractions have finally let up from where they were this afternoon. Maybe we can hold them off a few more days, but I have total faith that when the time is right, the baby will come and be fine. My good friend's husband came over tonight to help Sam give me a priesthood blessing. That really has helped me feel at peace with the situation.  I think everything will be good when it does happen for real. At least now, we have things prepared. Tonight we had our family home evening lesson on being prepared. We had the kids pack "Baby-Rushing" back packs so that they are ready, cleaned out their stuff in the van, moved car seats, and put the baby's car seat in its spot. We even have the cameras charging and ready now.  Its a nice feeling that the time is coming soon and we are now a little prepared.